Apple censored a dictionary app, forcing the developers to remove listings to "cock," "ass," and other words that make fifth graders giggle, before it allowed it to go up on the App Store. Ninjawords is now available (with those entries excised) but has a 17+ rating. [Engadget]
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@stpauliegirl: Do iPhones really do that?? I'm surprised there hasn't been more of an uproar. I'd be upset if what I typed isn't what gets sent.
Apple's app store censors can my .
@Franklin Comes Alive!: Err... I seem to have HTML tagged my way out of my attempted witty message. What I meant to say was:
Apple's censors can *censored* my *censored* *censored*.
@adamczar: I assume he's talking about autocorrect, which annoyingly changes words if you aren't paying attention, but you don't HAVE to accept their correction...
Wait, if the words are excised, why does it still have a 17+ rating? The developer should have called it "Happywords" or something?
Guess I should go to Barnes and Noble and move all the dictionaries to the Adult section?
@adamczar:
It doesn't change your message, but when you type it tries to autocorrect your spelling. I think that is what is being reffered to here.
Give me a fucking break.
(And how are we going to get 5th graders to use dictionaries, online or otherwise, without the promise of stumbling across a few dirty words?)
noticed that you guys had to censor (change) your posting too... does that mean you agree with apple? ;)
Apple is, little by little, beginning to exhibit the totalitarian approach to computing it railed against with its original "1984" commercial. The irony of it all is that Apple's own dictionary on OS X includes words like "fuck" and "shit", along with various colourful expressions to go along with it ("fuck off", "fuck around", etc). Hypocrisy much?
@adamczar: Yep, it does that to most curse words. Apple removed the words from its dictionary, so it doesn't recognize them and tries to find a "right" spelling for what you intended to write.
Humorously, for whatever reason, the my iPhone insists on capitalizing the c-bomb.
Apple's censorship is really aggravating. It's like their app store approval process. They'll censor something really useful (Google Voice) but allow Babyshaker to be approved. WTF?
@hungryhomer: Apple's own dictionary service in Mac OS X is using the New Oxford Dictionary, so none of that content is "from Apple" per se. It's not hypocrisy or irony as much as just a plain double standard.
The American Heritage Dictionary is the best selling App Store dictionary, with an age rating of "9+". It's advertised as having "entire text of this best selling book", "nearly 300,000 terms", so it is guaranteed to have every official swear word you can think of.
But a new, unestablished dictionary from a small developer gets wrung through the word filter check, and ends up being filtered, and inferior.
@adamczar: @smartmuffin: @Preyfar: Yes, I meant autocorrect. I usually don't notice it until after I hit a space after the word, and then "ducking" it is!
@Preyfar: That's really fucking stupid. (Gratuitously inserting swearing in defiance of this stuff.) Seriously, it's a DICTIONARY. If kids don't type it in, it's not going to suggest it to them. Censoring a dictionary is just crippling a product for no reason.
I'm glad kids are back to getting their jollies looking up "dirty" words in the dictionary. Just like old times! Clearly Apple needs to put a stop to this, though. Don't want them getting too...literate...I guess...
@johnva: By second grade me and all my friends were cursing like sailors. Any curse word (including the dreaded n-bomb) we'd learned by second or third grade grade. It's no different today.
What I find more humorous in today's society are the people who are gravely offended by their usage. I'm not saying everybody should be dropping f-bombs every other word like George Carlin after stubbing his toe, but swearing is a part of culture (for better or worse). While we shouldn't embrace them, we shouldn't deny their existence, either.
Seriously. If a kid's looking up "ass" in a dictionary then the kid already knows the freakin' word. Why censor it at that point? It's like trying to whitewash society.
Dear Apple:
Don't treat us like 2nd graders stuck in a class taught by a Fundamentalist Crazy Church Lady.
Love,
Your fans.
@stpauliegirl: Really? Mine is trained and doesn't even bother anymore. Also, it recognizes WTF, FFS and a lot of other inappropriate acryonyms/words I use too often.
@Trai_Dep:
...no, they're treating you like the mindless sheep that blithely buy whatever crap they tell you to without critically thinking about what you're doing.
It's one thing to remove words that don't have any other use than dirty ones, but what if Farmer Jones needs to txt his wife to tell her what new animals they need to buy for the farm?
@TheWillow: Mine learned other words and acronyms, but for whatever reason, it just will not learn the word "fucking." Which is disappointing because it's my favorite adjective.
Oh Jesus Christ. This is fucking ridiculous. Seeing shit like this just makes me want to fucking swear at every goddamned opportunity.
Honestly though, "ass" and "cock" are legitimate words with legitimate meanings that aren't curse-related. Rating a dictionary 17+? A dictionary? What is so scary about words that causes people to act like this?
@YouDidWhatNow?: It feels sort of weird to detest the company that makes your notebook, for reasons completely unrelated to performance of said notebook.
I cannot see myself buying from them again.
How are kids supposed to learn what "Fuckers" means? It means the Indians' bullpen, of course.
@YouDidWhatNow?: No, this is different. Selling us OS X 10.0, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5 for $129 each in an 8-year time frame or making iPods with integrated batteries so that you treat the whole thing as disposable is treating us like mindless sheep.
Frustrating us to death with a capricious App Store approval process is a whole new ball game. To their fans who can see what things look like from outside the bubble, this is war.
Seriously, it doesn't even make sense. No sane entity would rate a neutered dictionary 17+. I'd almost suspect that they outsourced app approval, like the approvers are following a script that contains banned words and concepts but have insufficient understanding of what the words mean and or be unable to understand how something can fit the criteria, but not be objectionable because it fails the "I'll know it when I see it" test.
Why bother censoring apps when you can use the browser to look up porn?
@stpauliegirl: It's possibly my favorite adjective, noun, verb, interjection and punctuation.* Trying to train myself not to talk like such a sailor, but for now acronyms are the best I can do.
*Is there an adverb form?
...the thing here that people keep missing is that the App Store is not a free market. It's a retail store, conceptually just like Target or Wal-Mart.
Target gets to decide what products they sell in their stores. If Wal-Mart insists that a CD get edited for naughty language before they sell it...well, they get an edited version. The consumer doesn't get to insist that W-M sell the unedited version, and the consumer doesn't get to insist that Target sell any product that it doesn't care to.
By the same token, Target is not a public service...they aren't required to provide their location to others to sell their stuff. You can't just waltz in, plunk down a table, and start selling your crap at Target. Same thing with the App Store...app developers don't have a "right" to get their product in that store.
Such terms are listed on the Apple sites and in contracts and such. None of this is secret, nor is it a surprize. If you don't like the fact that Apple wants to control what goes into it's App Store, then don't use their service/product.
@legwork:
...bingo. Not a single that Apple is doing with the App Store is wrong in any legal sense...or as far as I'm concerned, any moral sense either. They are simply tending their store as they see fit.
There is only one way to really make Apple understand that you don't like the way they are running their store, metaphorically speaking, and you hit it on the head.
Stop buying stuff from them.
When you buy a product/service that comes with terms & conditions of use, you have (in the action of choosing to buy said product/service) informed the vendor that you are happy with those terms & conditions. Complainy time is over...the vendor has got your money, and you are bound by their Ts & Cs.
Only if the vendor *does not* get your money do you have any leverage at all. When the vendor realizes taht it is *not* getting money from a great many people because of a common issue, like displeasure with their Ts & Cs, will the vendor consider making a change in order to get your dollars.
@YouDidWhatNow?: What's your point? We can complain about Wal-Mart when they do something stupid too. The free market applies to opinions too.
"Hey! Wal-Mart! You should stop fighting unionization in the US!"
See? It's a free market. I can buy an Apple product, and I can complain when they don't offer me the product I want, or offer services in the way I want them.
Free market doesn't mean that consumers need to bend over and take only what's given to them by the not-quite-invisible invisible hand.
@YouDidWhatNow?: Speaking of mindless sheep parroting trite crap, the dictionary that Apple does include for their OS not only recognizes, but defines "shit", "fuck", "ass" and "cock".
So rather than Apple as a whole being on a War Against Potty-Mouths, perhaps it's a matter of their App Store approval process needing tweaking?
Although, I guess that'd require more nuance and depth that you're capable of. Shame, that.
...I think you just agreed with me.
...I think.
Your comment about the "capriciousness" with which Apple runs it's App Store is not, in fact, a whole new ball game - it's a really old ball game, that lots of service providers have been running a really long time. Go check out the Ts & Cs on your cable/satellite TV service for example.
Of course you can always complain. But if you're complaining after you bought the product...well, the vendor already has your money, so you already lost the arguement. Refuse to buy the product in the first place, and then the vendor has a reason to pay attention to your dissatisfaction.
Your last comment though is a bit of a brain-twister - in a closed market, consumers would be bending over and taking whatever the invisible hand was giving them. In an open market, as noted, you have plenty of other options. The App Store, like Target, taken in-and-of itself, is a closed market - meaning that one entity (Apple or Target) is in 100% control of the content of the store. However, there are alternatives to Apple and Target elsewhere in the free market, and you are free to take your dollars there instead.
@Michael Belisle: Or if the randy traveling salesman wants to give the farmer's wife a good, vigorous "fuck"?
Oh wait. Did I overshoot?
@Trai_Dep:
Cute.
But as you and others have pointed out, it does seem rather schizophrenic for Apple to have such divergent censorship policies for dictionaries across it's product line. It would surely be better to adopt one standard for such censorship, wouldn't it?
@ludwigk: I didn't realize there were nearly 300,000 US English terms for "carnal intercourse".
Take that, snow-describing Eskimos!
@TheWillow: As long as Farmer Jones doesn't want his rooster to be smuggled home in the donkey, I don't see a problem with the words cock and ass.
@squinko - Coming Soon: When DDoS Attack!: but if the kids don't know what those words mean the porn won't cause any problems. right?
@hungryhomer: this is what happens when you embrace a "closed source" model. "it's my way or the highway" as my dad used to say. it's the reason why i snub apple products as a whole. don't get me wrong - they make some awesome shit. i've played with the iphone & it's a really awesome device, but the fact that your ability to use it is limited by design keeps me from ever purchasing one.
Where's George Orwell when we need him ? This is Newspeak come to fruition. "Ass" and "cock" DO INDEED have legit meanings outside of sexual connotation, and should never be censored.
What I find SO INTERESTING, is that George Carlin was spot-on when he talked about the Heavy Seven. Out of 400,000 words in the English language, there are only SEVEN that can never be used on television (or anywhere else for that matter).
I'm in agreement with Frank Zappa for the same reasons. There should be no word that is censored. To give a mere word so much fanfare, is to give it power, which attracts the typical kid to say it in school, get in trouble, then get their parents in trouble with DFACS, and so on. We've gotten so caught up in censorship for the sake of political-correctness, that we've shirked common sense for want of "safety" or "security", and we rightfully deserve neither.
@YouDidWhatNow?: We agree in the sense that I think we both believe in the free market. But I think your concept of how it should work is messed up.
If I complain before I buy the phone, then I'm just on of the 295 million non-Apple customers complaining. The expected revenue from me is close to zero. Now, if I complain after bought it, I've established that I'm customer and Apple can reasonably expect future revenue from me through music or app purchases, accesories, and future hardware replacements. So, no the argument isn't lost: Apple doesn't have the next 30 years of revenue from me yet. If they lose me, not only will I not buy future products from Apple, but I'll also steer my consierable Apple evalengilism talents towards steering people away from Apple.
And I don't want to take my money elsewhere. The alternatives like Android and Pre are not as good in certain related and unrelated ways. I'd rather join the growing and vocal chorus of people upset at Apple who want them to fix this.
Lastly, not only am I an Apple customer; I'm also a shareholder.
I guess then we just disagree on how to incent a vendor to make changes to their product/service...
It seems to me that if I don't like the Ts & Cs that come with a service, but I buy it anyway...the vendor already has my money, and is not incented to change anything.
If I decline to buy the service, and let the vendor know that I declined to buy their service because of [whatever], then the vendor has been made aware of the fact that their [whatever] is costing them business.
If I just go and buy someone else's service that, at the very least, is less offensive to me without saying anything at all the the original vendor, then at the very least I'm not encouraging said vendor to continue in it's "evil" ways.
I think about it like this: a friend of mine, who normally wouldn't eat fast food, walked into a BK one day while they were promoting 2 "Big King" burgers for $2 or something like that. If you don't remember, the Big King was BK's version of the Big Mac - double burger with thousand island dressing. Anyhoo, my friend attempted to order said burgers, but asked for them without the "special sauce." He was told that "well, no, that's the way they come and we can't change those burgers." After a bit of disbelief and a second attempt to purchase the burgers without the sauce, my friend turned and walked out of the restaurant.
BK offered a product that had Ts & Cs attached to it that my friend didn't like. He asked for an amendment to those Ts & Cs in order to make a purchase. The vendor declined to change their Ts & Cs in order to make a sale, and they watched their potential revenue walk out the door.
If my friend had purchased the burgers anyway, and accepted the special sauce, then no amount of complaining to BK would do any good - since, obviously, having to deal with the sauce was not a sufficient detriment to him to keep his dollars away from BK. Hence...BK would have no reason to consider changing their policy.
Sorry for long-windedness, but I just don't get how going ahead and buying the product/service is going to incent the vendor to change anything, since they already have your money at that point.
@YouDidWhatNow?: Note that I bought the iPhone in 2006, long before such amenities as the "App Store" or "Copy and Paste" existed. So there's really no way for me to pre-complain about the direction the store is heading, since I was a customer before it existed.
The burger situation is subtly different. The special sauce is s deal killer and the presence is fully known to the customer in advance. But even then, buying the burger now does not prevent him from complaining about the presence of special sauce in future burgers. Also, your friend was trying to convince the wrong person. The front line has no authority to change the rules. And BK didn't watch potential revenue walk out the door: the cashier, who makes a fixed wage, watched extra effort for the kitchen walk out the door.
Buying the product has nothing to do with convincing them to change it. That only establishes a relationship. It's the future revenue that I represent that I use as my bargaining chip. The difference between your attitude and mine is analogous to what separates a company that believes in churn (i.e., that customers are disposable) from those who believe that it costs x times more to get a new customer as it does to retain an existing one.
Companies accommodate existing customers all the time, even those that have already bought the product. If they didn't, then they they'd have to find new customers.
I'm starting to think they have some kind of automated testing program which is set to filter things.
That or they've hired a bunch of Mormons for the app approval group, and they've run amok.
The whole thing defies any reasonable explanation with the assumption that a sane, educated human with common sense was doing the approval. I'm leaning towards automated test harness and/or crazy mormons. Or an AI that was raised Mormon.
The iTunes App Store approval process is starting to sound more and more like the time I went through customs in an airport where each person had to push a button before exiting. The button triggered either a green or red light at random. Green meant go; red meant you were getting a cavity search.
But perhaps Apple has some grand plan with all this insanity, like pushing everyone almost to the brink and then saying "Hey guys! Sorry we messed up. But a fix is on its way!" It'd grab headlines and everyone would be so relieved that they'd buy iPhones en masse and developers would get back to coding furiously instead of banging their head against the desk.
Well, I guess then in your case I think my advice would be to not use the App Store, while letting Apple know that you're not using it because your don't like their Ts & Cs.
In the BK example, one would hope that a manager or someone else who cared either saw or found out about the lost revenue. You're right, they probably didn't...but ideally they would have.
So to my mind, a pre-existing iPhone customer who has not yet started using the App Store (and thereby informed Apple that the Ts & Cs that go with it are not going to keep their $ away) is the same as my friend at the BK counter - that transaction hasn't happened yet. The App Store transaction, specifically. As an existing Apple customer, you may very well get better visibility - but playing devil's advocate, if you're already an Apple customer, it may well hold true that you're more likely to just keep going along with whatever Apple wants you to do anyway - rather than the total non-customer who has yet to buy any Apple products because they are wary of the baggage that comes with it.
I will grant you this: as far as I can tell, Apple has exceedingly low churn in it's customer base...it absolutely seems that Apple consumers will well and truly consume whatever the hell Apple tells them to. They don't leave, no matter how bad it gets. It's like a religion, and in that sense, Apple is absolutely in a class (cult?) of it's own.
![[img257.imageshack.us]](http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/9885/dictionary.png){kind=link}
I've noticed that no matter how many times I type it, my iPhone is always changing "fucking" to "ducking." Hey, Apple, I'm grown up enough to buy your phone and pay for it every month, so just let me fucking swear in text messages, thanks!